Martin:
We could go on like this for weeks without solving anything, but I must say that I don’t agree with you about strengthening our base audience without making an even bigger push towards garnering new fans.
Our hard core base is not enough of an audience to attract the kind of sponsors the sport needs to flourish.
Yesterday I mentioned those two million ticket buyers and don’t recall whether or not I asked that of those, what’s the percentage of multiple event visitors? Many hard core fans attend more than one POWERade Series race, so it’s highly likely that there may be no more than 1.5 M actual fans involved in that equation. Any way you look at it, that’s not a very big number.
But you said it yourself when you referenced the inroads the sport has made with ESPN, the Internet and outlets like USA Today, which has given us much better coverage in the last year or two than it ever did in the past. Credit the NHRA Media Department for that because they work non-stop to get those people interested and out there to cover our races. And it’s not just begging phone calls. It’s face-to-face meetings in their offices, not NHRA’s. It’s a constant barrage of story ideas, results and anything else they can think of. Believe me, those people bust their butts to increase drag racing’s exposure. Just because we don’t personally witness those efforts doesn’t mean they aren’t taking place behind the scenes.
Another seldom-mentioned problem with attracting some media people is their personal affinity for some other form of motorsports rather than drag racing. I won’t name names here, but there are a couple of nationally prominent news gatherers who look down their noses at drag racing, and they’re in a position to “deny” the sport exposure. Never mind that their readers may like drag racing.
This little vignette is indicative of how the media can react to drag racing: Not that many years ago, when I was a Senior Editor for RACER Magazine, I would include with whatever feature story we were doing on the U.S. Nationals a sidebar story on the actual event results, including all of the pro categories. The editor would often tell me, “We aren’t a truck or motorcycle magazine,” which was why, almost every time, whatever I included on Pro Stock Motorcycle or (it pains me to even mention them) Pro Stock Truck would be excised from the story.
Years and years earlier, when I was on staff at Car Craft Magazine, I came back from race with a killer shot of a wheelstanding Pro Stock car. I certainly wanted it to run as a single shot, turn-page feature or even a full spread, as did the Art Director. Uh-uh. No Chance. Turned out the editor didn’t like the guy, had apparently had some falling out with him over something. The photo never ran at all.
The point is that regardless of merit, personal feelings often enter into how our sport is portrayed in the media, and that’s a real problem, too.
No one is denying the strength or growth of NASCAR’s top series, but at the same time it’s worth noting that in the last year or so ticket sales at some venues have declined, and there’s also been a downturn in some of their TV numbers. Oversaturation and/or high ticket prices may be the cause, but I find it very interesting that during yesterday’s twin Gatorade 150s from Daytona on the SPEED Channel they were running ads stating that tickets were still available for Sunday’s 500, and that’s not something I can recall having seen in the past.
Many of us have had that take-the-neighbor-to-the-track experience, and it can cut both ways. I arranged for tickets to the Denver race a few years ago for a local man who was thinking about getting involved in motorsports on the sponsorship level. He is still talking about how exciting it was, but alas, his company just didn’t have the funding to move forward. But nevertheless, he loved what he saw and speaks positively about the sport to his business compatriots. Maybe one of them will step up to the plate at some point because of this guy’s positive talk about us.
Martin, no offense intended, but nobody’s going to come around to our way of thinking. We have to figure out a way of attracting those people to our events without making them feel like it’s something they “should” do. We have to figure out a way of making it so irresistible that they can’t stay away.
Something else worth mentioning here is that the Ashley onslaught absolutely has and will include more and more “straight” TV shows. Okay, so if she was on Letterman or Leno we’d all know about it, but for all we know her exceptionally talented team PR person might have her doing radio call-ins to shows in Denver, Toledo and Pittsburgh right now, with four more slated for tomorrow morning. And the “lever” to get her on those shows was the coverage she received on ESPN last weekend.
Jon Asher
We could go on like this for weeks without solving anything, but I must say that I don’t agree with you about strengthening our base audience without making an even bigger push towards garnering new fans.
Our hard core base is not enough of an audience to attract the kind of sponsors the sport needs to flourish.
Yesterday I mentioned those two million ticket buyers and don’t recall whether or not I asked that of those, what’s the percentage of multiple event visitors? Many hard core fans attend more than one POWERade Series race, so it’s highly likely that there may be no more than 1.5 M actual fans involved in that equation. Any way you look at it, that’s not a very big number.
But you said it yourself when you referenced the inroads the sport has made with ESPN, the Internet and outlets like USA Today, which has given us much better coverage in the last year or two than it ever did in the past. Credit the NHRA Media Department for that because they work non-stop to get those people interested and out there to cover our races. And it’s not just begging phone calls. It’s face-to-face meetings in their offices, not NHRA’s. It’s a constant barrage of story ideas, results and anything else they can think of. Believe me, those people bust their butts to increase drag racing’s exposure. Just because we don’t personally witness those efforts doesn’t mean they aren’t taking place behind the scenes.
Another seldom-mentioned problem with attracting some media people is their personal affinity for some other form of motorsports rather than drag racing. I won’t name names here, but there are a couple of nationally prominent news gatherers who look down their noses at drag racing, and they’re in a position to “deny” the sport exposure. Never mind that their readers may like drag racing.
This little vignette is indicative of how the media can react to drag racing: Not that many years ago, when I was a Senior Editor for RACER Magazine, I would include with whatever feature story we were doing on the U.S. Nationals a sidebar story on the actual event results, including all of the pro categories. The editor would often tell me, “We aren’t a truck or motorcycle magazine,” which was why, almost every time, whatever I included on Pro Stock Motorcycle or (it pains me to even mention them) Pro Stock Truck would be excised from the story.
Years and years earlier, when I was on staff at Car Craft Magazine, I came back from race with a killer shot of a wheelstanding Pro Stock car. I certainly wanted it to run as a single shot, turn-page feature or even a full spread, as did the Art Director. Uh-uh. No Chance. Turned out the editor didn’t like the guy, had apparently had some falling out with him over something. The photo never ran at all.
The point is that regardless of merit, personal feelings often enter into how our sport is portrayed in the media, and that’s a real problem, too.
No one is denying the strength or growth of NASCAR’s top series, but at the same time it’s worth noting that in the last year or so ticket sales at some venues have declined, and there’s also been a downturn in some of their TV numbers. Oversaturation and/or high ticket prices may be the cause, but I find it very interesting that during yesterday’s twin Gatorade 150s from Daytona on the SPEED Channel they were running ads stating that tickets were still available for Sunday’s 500, and that’s not something I can recall having seen in the past.
Many of us have had that take-the-neighbor-to-the-track experience, and it can cut both ways. I arranged for tickets to the Denver race a few years ago for a local man who was thinking about getting involved in motorsports on the sponsorship level. He is still talking about how exciting it was, but alas, his company just didn’t have the funding to move forward. But nevertheless, he loved what he saw and speaks positively about the sport to his business compatriots. Maybe one of them will step up to the plate at some point because of this guy’s positive talk about us.
Martin, no offense intended, but nobody’s going to come around to our way of thinking. We have to figure out a way of attracting those people to our events without making them feel like it’s something they “should” do. We have to figure out a way of making it so irresistible that they can’t stay away.
Something else worth mentioning here is that the Ashley onslaught absolutely has and will include more and more “straight” TV shows. Okay, so if she was on Letterman or Leno we’d all know about it, but for all we know her exceptionally talented team PR person might have her doing radio call-ins to shows in Denver, Toledo and Pittsburgh right now, with four more slated for tomorrow morning. And the “lever” to get her on those shows was the coverage she received on ESPN last weekend.
Jon Asher
